From Prospect magazine website, September 11, 2014. One of Scotland’s best-known plays is Peter Pan. At the dramatic moment when the fairy Tinkerbell, traditionally played by a spotlight which flickers and then seems to go out, is close to death. Peter Pan turns to the audience and says she can only be saved if the audience demonstrates that they do believe in fairies by clapping their hands, which generally results in thunderous applause from adults and children alike.

The current winner-takes-all referendum campaign for Scottish independence is reminiscent of the febrile politics of the late 1970s, when a minority Labour government called Scotland ’s first constitutional referendum on…